e difference between “chill” and “windchill” is reflected in Vermonters’ approaches to winter: Some prefer to stay warm and cozy indoors; others love to play in the snow. Perhaps we can all agree on the importance of having a home, the pleasure of making it your own and the comfort of keeping it safe. In this issue we profile Vermont retailer ADDISON WEST, which puts the “good” in “home goods”; learn about DIY BLACKSMITHING from a newbie enthusiast; take a tour of a LOCAL DESIGNER’S RENOVATED MIDCENTURY HOUSE; meet the security experts at VERMONT HOME WATCH; and report on a CONTROVERSIAL RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT in Shelburne.
A new state law spurs a development push, and resistance, in Shelburne
ANNE WALLACE ALLEN
Designer Bethany Andrews-Nichols and her family remake their midcentury Burlington home
their owners are
HOME Stretch
A new state law spurs a development push, and resistance, in Shelburne
BY ANNE WALLACE ALLEN • anne@sevendaysvt.com
Like many people in Shelburne, Susan Jacobs sees the irony in opposing a large housing development that’s planned for hayfields near her home. She knows the region’s housing crisis is causing pain. Her 43-year-old son and his wife are stuck in a one-bedroom apartment in Burlington because they can’t afford a larger place.
Nevertheless, Jacobs said, the proposed 375-unit project is wrong for Shelburne because of the noise, the traffic and other ways an estimated 1,000 new arrivals would change the community.
“It has to be very frustrating to try to find a place to live,” Jacobs said in an interview at the hilltop home where she’s lived since 1986. “Yet here we are saying, ‘Not in my backyard.’”
That’s a stance that many of her fellow residents in the upscale Chittenden County town have taken: Yes, Vermont desperately needs more housing — but not this particular development in my community.
Vermont lawmakers set out to short-circuit local resistance to denser, multifamily development when they passed the HOME Act in 2023. Crafted in response to Vermont’s housing shortage — by one estimate Vermont needs 30,000 more units by 2030 — the law, also known as Act 47, overrides local zoning ordinances. It identifies areas with municipal water
Sandy and Susan Jacobs
O’Brien Brothers CEO Evan Langfeldt on the Shelburne property where the company plans to build a 375-home subdivision
and sewer infrastructure as places where smaller lot sizes and multifamily housing must be allowed.
But, as the debate in Shelburne makes clear, the housing crisis and the mandate from Montpelier don’t always make the prospect of dense residential development more palatable to neighbors.
Shelburne’s municipal water and sewer pipes — though not the town’s designated sewer service area — just reach a nearly 200-acre parcel owned by the South Burlington construction company O’Brien Brothers. The passage of Act 47 prompted O’Brien to take a fresh look at its fields, wetlands and forest about a mile and a half from Shelburne village.
Without Act 47, the town’s zoning would require O’Brien to subdivide the property into lots of five acres or more — a pattern that runs counter to Shelburne’s town plan, which calls for compact, walkable development in growth areas such as the sewer service area.
Act 47’s density allowances mean that if the town agrees to add the land
THE WAY TO BUILD AFFORDABLE HOUSING IS TO BUILD HOUSING.
MATT WORMSER
to its designated sewer service area, O’Brien could build as many as 500 homes.
The Shelburne Selectboard has worked with the family-owned firm to create a predevelopment agreement that would limit the project to 375 housing units. In exchange, the town would expand Shelburne’s sewer service area — a critical designation to make the development possible. Under the plan, the town wouldn’t be extending any sewer lines, only the designation.
“It’s a collaborative process as opposed to an adversarial process,” O’Brien Brothers CEO Evan Langfeldt said of his company’s negotiations with the town. The five-person selectboard is scheduled to vote on the predevelopment agreement at its meeting on January 28. Four of the members have said they support the project; one, Luce Hillman, did not return messages left by Nest Selectboard member Andrew Everett said in an interview that he has reservations about the traffic impact, but he supports the project because O’Brien Brothers has shown with
its Hillside at O’Brien Farm housing development in South Burlington that it’s willing to build sustainably, with solar panels and a net-zero neighborhood. He added that he thinks Shelburne has a responsibility to help alleviate the local housing crisis.
“We wouldn’t have brought it forward if we didn’t think it was a good thing for the town,” Everett said.
The O’Brien proposal includes single-family homes, multifamily homes such as duplexes and apartment buildings no taller than three stories.
The development would also include public walking paths, bike paths and playgrounds, and about 90 acres set aside for conservation.
When it’s fully built — which could take a decade — the housing development would be the town’s largest ever. The project would also need approval from Shelburne’s Design Review Board and would undergo state Act 250 environmental review.
O’Brien has pledged to create a carbon-free community similar to the one at its large South Burlington project, currently under construction, which has some all-electric homes, backup batteries and solar power, and no fossil fuel infrastructure on-site.
Nevertheless, when the company proposed the Shelburne project last spring, a wave of opposition rose. More than 600 people signed a change.org petition titled “Don’t Accept the O’Brien Brothers Petition & Pre-Development Agreement.” Dozens have complained in Front Porch Forum, in the weekly Shelburne News and in testimony to the selectboard, which held two public hearings on the predevelopment agreement.
Two couples with property abutting the O’Brien land hired Bristol lawyer James Dumont. In August he wrote to the selectboard that executing the predevelopment agreement would violate Vermont law “and is likely to involve the Town in protracted litigation that the Town would likely lose.”
The Shelburne Selectboard asked two law firms to review the predevelopment agreement; both said the town has the authority to enter into the agreement and expand the sewer service area.
The O’Brien plans do have supporters in Shelburne. They include several selectboard members, including Chunka Mui, a Chicago native who moved to Shelburne seeking serenity. Since 2013, Mui has raised his kids — and tended to chickens, goats, pigs and a beehive — on five acres near the village.
But Mui, an author and business
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consultant, also sees change as inevitable. He’d like to have a say in how that happens.
“We can’t hold it back; it’s like a wave,” he said. “Long-range planning is important in shaping the kind of future we want to have.”
Like many Vermont communities, Shelburne needs workers. It also needs more places for workers to live, more kids in its schools and more property tax revenue, Mui said.
“We have a huge property tax bill here, which would be helped by more houses,” he said.
Supporters say the area needs housing of many different types and price ranges. Most of Vermont does.
“What a lot of housing advocates have come to realize is that the way to build affordable housing is to build housing,” said Matt Wormser, vice chair of the selectboard. “This is going to help us ease the crisis and the pricing pressures.”
If the O’Brien homes were built, lawyer Peter Erly and his wife would be able to see them from their home, and the two would live with a backdrop of construction noise for years. But he supports the project, he said, because the community needs more housing. Erly, 71, moved to Vermont in 1987.
“I like Vermont for the way it is, but thoughtful change is not necessarily bad,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of ‘pull up the gangplank’ people who move here and don’t want anybody else to move here after them, but from an economic standpoint, we need slow but controlled growth.”
Critics often say they want to see more housing, just not in former hayfields.
“It’s too much,” said Sandy Jacobs, Susan’s husband.
The couple chose their homesite in the 1980s for its rural setting and easy access to work in Burlington and South Burlington. They cut walking trails through their woods and invited neighbors to use them.
Like much of Chittenden County, the area has been transformed over recent decades. Spear Street Extension, as it was previously known, was paved in 1986. A nearby field where Sandy used to mow walking trails became a subdivision around 2000.
Susan said the pair joined SAFE, or Shelburne Alliance for the Environment, which has published a statement calling for the selectboard to reduce the number of housing units to 160.
“It’ll affect the police department, the fire department, the way we live in this rural town, or at least the way we see it as a rural town,” Susan, a retired elementary school teacher, said.
WE HAVE A HUGE PROPERTY TAX BILL HERE, WHICH WOULD BE HELPED BY MORE HOUSES.
CHUNKA MUI
TAKING CHARGE
In 2022 and 2023, lawmakers looking for ways to ease Vermont’s housing crisis passed new laws that override local zoning regs. Act 47, Vermont’s 2023 “HOME” law, opened up new areas to dense development, and Act 181, a year later, refined that law.
Together, the new regulations call for many changes, including:
• In areas with sewer and water, requiring municipalities to allow up to four units of housing on lots where single-family homes are now allowed
• Requiring municipalities to allow five units of housing per acre in areas served by sewer and water lines
• Reducing the parking requirements for housing developments
• Increasing the number of residents’ signatures required before an appeal can be filed
• Making it easier for property owners to build accessory dwelling units, or ADUs
• Setting regional targets for new housing
• Replacing the volunteer Vermont Natural Resources Board, which administers the Act 250 land-use program, with a new entity called the Land Use Review Board, which has five paid staff members
wonderful housing project, and it’s close to a grocery store,” she suggested.
While Route 7 is increasingly populated by commercial and residential structures, Shelburne zoning has kept development largely in check outside of that busy corridor.
The predevelopment agreement outlines some rules for the project, but it doesn’t address widespread concerns about the traffic impact on Irish Hill Road and the village, where Route 7 is already congested. That’s Sandy Jacobs’ primary concern. Otherwise, he said, he accepts that the housing is needed.
Sandy said he’s driven through the O’Brien housing development in South Burlington, where 900 units are planned.
The company has already built more than 100 closely packed homes and apartment buildings there, with land set aside for paths and parks. To him, it’s too much.
“I can’t say how I feel about it without using a four-letter word,” Sandy said.
“Everything is just kind of jammed together to get as much as they can for every square inch of land that they’re developing. It just doesn’t feel very livable.”
As part of the Shelburne predevelopment agreement, O’Brien Brothers has agreed that 12 percent of the units, or about 45 homes, will be
affordable to people making 80 percent of the area’s median income. Rosemary Sadler, an active project opponent and SAFE member, scoffed at that.
“That still means 334 homes for wealthy people would be on that piece of land,” she said. That’s an argument offered by many opponents of the development.
They also argue that worker homes should be located on Route 7, where Champlain Housing Trust is already at work on a 94-unit affordable housing complex. Such housing should go on land that’s already developed, Sadler added.
“We have defunct buildings. We have a Red Apple Motel on Route 7 that is falling down, which would make
Many residents oppose the development altogether. Artist Jari Chevalier said she moved to Shelburne from New York City in 2020 to escape crowds and dreads the constructionrelated havoc a housing development would bring.
“The slowdowns, orange cones, and people with orange and yellow vests on, and noise, and backup beeps: All of that is going to have a huge impact on my life and my routes and my travel,” Chevalier said. “I love the low population density of Vermont; that was a big draw to the state.” ➆
TOP PHOTO: Shelburne resident Peter Erly supports the proposed development in Shelburne. Behind him is a view of the property where it will go.
BOTTOM PHOTO: Shelburne town manager Matt Lawless at the proposed development site
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Living Color
BY PAMELA POLSTON • ppolston@sevendaysvt.com
Designer Bethany Andrews-Nichols and her family remake their midcentury Burlington home
Fringy squares in red, orange and blue. Pink trapezoids encasing red circles stacked like snowmen. A melée of florals in primary hues. If you enjoy extravagant color and wildly imaginative patterns printed on paper, walls or fabric, head to Bethany Andrews-Nichols’ Burlington studio, or to her website. The Beenanza Design owner, 41, “loves finding innovative ways to interpret a ‘print,’” she states on the site. And multiplication is part of the mojo, she promises: “No matter how I do it, I do it on repeat.”
So, what might a visitor to Andrews-Nichols’ home discover? Shouty wallpaper? Zigzaggy shag rugs? Cushions with eye-popping optics? Nest determined to find out. The answers were surprising.
Yes, color is elevated at the Lyman Avenue house in Burlington’s “So-Fly” (south of Flynn Avenue) neighborhood. For starters, the exterior doors are peridot green, the siding a complementary rich blue. But inside, the application of color and pattern comes in measured doses. Perhaps that’s because other people live here, too: Andrews-Nichols’ husband, Chad Nichols, 43, and sons Emory, 12, and Oliver, 15. (There’s also a 1-year-old mixed-breed pup named Delta.)
The couple recently renovated the 1964 home, which they bought in 2011. A two-story addition at the rear incorporates a sunken lounge with tall windows overlooking a new deck and grill gazebo; a small back entryway with coat hooks and a bench; a second-floor primary bedroom with a vaulted ceiling and walk-in closet; and another bathroom. AndrewsNichols designed the striking chevron-patterned privacy screen in white powder-coated aluminum that shields the back door.
The expansion enabled the family to turn a cramped living room into an airy dining room, onto which the front door opens. The wall to the
FRAMED GRAPHIC ARTWORK THROUGHOUT THE HOUSE MATCHES THE CLEAN, UNCLUTTERED DESIGN SENSIBILITY.
Bethany Andrews-Nichols and Chad Nichols at their home’s rear entrance
e upstairs bathroom
left is cobalt blue. “I saw a photo of a living room in India that was all blue,” Andrews-Nichols said. “I thought, That might not be possible, but I want that color! I went through the Benjamin Moore app and matched [it].”
The other dining room walls are white; built-in shelves hold books, photos and some family Lego constructions; a dark wood credenza with white doors provides more storage and a deceptively midcentury aesthetic. (“I found that at HomeGoods,” AndrewsNichols confided.) Above it hangs a print of a space-exploration scene by Scott Listfield, a nod to what Nichols calls his “sci-fi thing.”
To the right is a light-filled kitchen, painted a creamy yellow. The honeycolored cabinetry was already there, Andrews-Nichols explained. The wall that once divided living room and kitchen is now a half-wall breakfast bar. Hanging over it are chic columnar lamps imported from Sweden that had
couch, it isn’t shouting; it’s having a conversation.
If this couple have any disagreements about the look of their home, they don’t show it. Nichols acknowledged his wife “knows what looks good.” Their vibe together is comfortable and simpatico; it’s not surprising to learn they were high school sweethearts back in Cincinnati, Ohio, with a long-distance relationship during college. Andrews-Nichols went to Buffalo State University — “Amazingly, they have a great design department,” she said — while Nichols attended Bowling Green State University in northwest Ohio.
After graduating, the two followed their career paths first to Minneapolis, then to Chicago, marrying in 2007. In 2008, they arrived in Vermont.
Andrews-Nichols worked for Magic Hat Brewing for nine years, designing beer labels for the Vermont-born company and other brands within its eventual owner, North American Breweries. She left “after people started getting laid off,” in November 2017. The following year, she launched Beenanza.
WHERE COLOR APPEARS, SUCH AS A PALE AQUA WALL ADJACENT TO A CORAL-TONED COUCH, IT ISN’T SHOUTING; IT’S HAVING A CONVERSATION.
to be rewired for American specifications, she noted. An island in the center of the room is a steel cart on wheels with a chopping-board top. Blond hardwood flooring bolsters the sense of spaciousness.
Framed graphic artwork throughout the house matches the clean, uncluttered design sensibility. Many of the works are prints by Andrews-Nichols herself, such as orange fruits arranged like a checkerboard and a cartoony stack of women’s breasts in five skin tones. The latter print, a popular item on her website, hangs in the upstairs bathroom. That room is a welcoming oasis with soft pink walls and emerald-green tiles in the walk-in shower. Andrews-Nichols designed the floral floor pattern of interlocking hexagonal tiles in white, gray and black.
In fact, she indulged her penchant for patterning in numerous black-and-white accents throughout the house: stripes on pillows, a shower curtain, a mirror frame; rugs and bedding with contrasting geometries. It’s the black and white that provide balance and visual cohesion in this home — call it the yin and yang of design. Where color appears, such as a pale aqua wall adjacent to a coral-toned
Over those years, Nichols’ professional trajectory included working in commercial and green/LEED construction and renewable energy. During the pandemic, he earned a master’s degree in international business. Now he works at South Burlington aerospace manufacturer Beta Technologies.
At Beenanza, Andrews-Nichols is busy block printing on paper, clothing, fabric for tea towels, curtains and more with her “bold, joyful, happy designs.” She has created murals for commercial clients including Northfield Savings Bank, Trapp Family Lodge, Cabot Creamery and Mamava. She teaches printing workshops for individuals and groups and is partnering with Stash, a fabric company also located in Burlington’s Soda Plant, to “create block-printed fabric on bolts,” she said. “They’ll be printed in India, hopefully this spring.”
At home, the family is still getting used to the new look of their living quarters. “One of our sons said it was like an Airbnb,” Andrews-Nichols said with a laugh. “Now I feel like we’ve added some mess; it’s more lived in.” ➆
Chad Nichols and Bethany Andrews-Nichols at their Burlington home
The living room
House Keepers
Vermont Home Watch keeps abodes shipshape and safe while their owners are away
BY KEN PICARD • ken@sevendaysvt.com
Before Colette left Vermont in fall 2023 for her winter home in Bonita Springs, Fla., a neighbor offered to keep an eye on her house while she was away for six months. Though it was a generous offer, the retired widow from Williston didn’t feel comfortable imposing so much responsibility on a neighbor, especially one who refused to accept payment for his time and effort.
Then Colette heard about Vermont Home Watch. The Jericho-based business promises to keep houses safe and secure while their owners are out of town for a week, a month or a year.
“I thought, This is perfect, because I’m always looking for somebody to take care of my property while I’m gone,” Colette
Charlie Posnick photographing the gauge on a propane tank
Charlie Posnick checking under a sink as part of his Vermont Home Watch service
said. (Like all the homeowners interviewed for this story, Colette asked that her last name not be published because her house is unoccupied for much of the year.)
Vermont consistently ranks in the top three states for second-home ownership, with about 17 percent of all residential properties listed as recreational or seasonal, according to the 2023 U.S. Census. With many of those houses and condos sitting vacant for months at a time, a cottage industry has sprung up to keep an eye on part-time residences while their owners aren’t there.
“A lot can happen to a home when it’s unoccupied,” said Charlie Posnick, co-owner with his wife, Kim, of Vermont Home Watch, which serves all of Chittenden County as well as Waterbury, South Hero and Grand Isle.
Posnick, 65, launched Vermont Home Watch in December 2022 after retiring from a career as a software tester at Dealer.com. Eager to remain busy into his retirement, he heard about the National Home Watch Association, an industry trade group that trains and certifies home-watch professionals. Posnick’s is one of three such businesses in Vermont and the only one that is nationally certified. Elsewhere, home-watch professionals have operated for more than 20 years in such places as Arizona and Florida, where seasonal properties are common. The national certification requires home watchers to be insured and bonded and to undergo training and criminal background checks.
Posnick’s clients are mostly snowbirds and professionals who travel frequently. Occasionally, he’s hired to watch vacant houses that are part of decedents’ estates that are going through probate court and cannot be sold yet. One of his clients is a family relocating from Georgia, who engaged him to regularly check on their new house until they’re ready to move north.
“A lot of people have security cameras or remote temperature monitors,” Posnick said. “That’s great and all, but it gives the homeowner a false sense of security because it doesn’t provide a complete picture of what condition their house is in.” If the power or internet goes out, he noted, the homeowner may not discover a problem until it causes serious damage.
Posnick does more than stop by the house every few weeks to bring in the mail and water the plants. During a routine visit, he’ll spend 30 to 45 minutes working through a checklist of 30 items from the basement to the attic. He looks for water leaks, checks for dying batteries on smoke detectors and carbon monoxide alarms, and sniffs the air for mold and other strange odors. He flushes every
toilet and runs every faucet to make sure the pipes don’t freeze and the plumbing traps don’t dry out, which can allow noxious sewer gases to leak into the home.
“A security camera won’t tell the homeowner that their freezer stopped working and the food is spoiling,” he added. “But I’ll be able to tell the minute I walk in.”
Outside, Posnick inspects the roof, gutters, outbuildings and surrounding landscape for signs of vandalism, downed trees, ice dams, and animal or insect infestations.
“My job is to discover small issues before they become extensive, expensive damage,” he said.
That was certainly the case for Colette, whose furnace stopped working about a month ago while she was away. Posnick discovered the problem, contacted Colette, then scheduled a repair crew from Vermont Gas to come the same day. Within 48 hours, the furnace was running again.
“If that [problem] hadn’t been discovered for weeks,” Posnick noted, “she would have had water damage for sure.”
Vermont house last fall. A week later, Posnick came in for his weekly inspection and discovered a small leak. While it wasn’t a dire emergency, Tim said, Posnick found a basin to catch the water until the contractor could return and fix it.
“Just getting eyes on stuff has been a huge help,” Tim added. “It more than provides peace of mind.”
The rates for Vermont Home Watch vary depending on the size of the house and the level of services requested. A single visit starts at $65, and Posnick
If Posnick discovers a problem, such as a leaky pipe or damaged roof shingles, he immediately notifies the homeowner and offers options for addressing the problem. When a home is unoccupied for an extended period and damage occurs, the insurance company may deny the claim if it’s not filed in a timely manner, he explained.
Typically, Posnick’s clients ask him to take care of the problem himself. Vermont Home Watch also maintains an extensive list of preferred contractors — roofers, plumbers, electricians, exterminators — who can address nearly any residential issue. All have been vetted by Posnick to make sure they are licensed, bonded and insured. He will allow the contractor access to the house and document their work with before-and-after photos and videos.
MY JOB IS TO DISCOVER SMALL ISSUES BEFORE THEY BECOME EXTENSIVE, EXPENSIVE DAMAGE.
Another time, Posnick discovered a broken window on the third floor of Colette’s house. Rather than waiting until she returned in April to fix it, Colette asked Posnick to bring in a repair service.
“I’m just thrilled with him,” she said. “He’s very responsible and very knowledgeable.”
Because many of his clients are business travelers, Posnick offers other à la carte services, such as running errands, idling clients’ cars and stocking their refrigerators just before they return.
“Charlie’s been very helpful. A supernice guy who goes above and beyond,” said Tim, a Florida resident who owns a vacation home in rural Chittenden County. “He’s the kind of guy I would call a friend at this point.”
Tim, who first hired Posnick in June 2023, replaced the heating system in his
recommends at least one visit every other week.
“Obviously, a 200-year-old farmhouse with four bedrooms and three bathrooms and old plumbing is going to take me longer to check than a brand-new 1,500-square-foot condo,” he said.
Unlike some of his home-watch colleagues in other states, Posnick hasn’t had any dangerous or strange encounters on the job — no burglars, squatters or large venomous snakes lurking in toilets. About the worst issues he’s dealt with are broken windows and downed trees.
But for Posnick, an uneventful day of work is precisely the goal, keeping small problems from hitting people where they live. ➆
CHARLIE POSNICK
West-ward Expansion
Home-goods boutique Addison West grows in Vermont
BY AMY LILLY • lilly@sevendaysvt.com
When Monique Bonner turned 50 in 2020, she decided to leave the world of technology marketing, where she’d worked for 20 years at Dell and other major companies, and do something she’d always dreamed of: start a home-goods store. But the pandemic was raging at the time, so the Middlebury College alum launched her shop online. She named it Addison West to honor where she lived: on West Street in the Addison County town of Cornwall.
Owner Monique Bonner at Addison West in Waitsfield
Since then, Addison West has grown considerably. It now occupies a small retail space in Middlebury’s historic Stone Mill and a wonderfully rambling, 5,000-square-foot one on Main Street in Waitsfield. The latter is an 1834 building previously occupied for 35 years by the Store, a kitchen-supply emporium. It also houses Addison West’s recently launched design services. Packing and shipping for online sales — now 30 percent of the business — take place in the basement.
pieces; Kalastyle’s wood-scented soaps with an ax on the packaging; shearling slippers from France.
Actually, I wanted those slippers, too; the pit’s masculine theme is just a suggestion. After all, the whole crew at Addison West is female, including lead designer Bibiana De Souza, Waitsfield store manager Anna Mays, operations manager Maxine Eaton, and brand and digital director Elisabeth Waller, who shadowed our tour taking photos for the company’s Instagram account. Everyone
VERMONT IS PART OF WHO WE ARE, PART OF THE DESIGN AESTHETIC THAT DRIVES US.
MONIQUE BONNER
Bonner led Nest through the Waitsfield store just as the holiday season was peaking, making it di cult for this reporter to separate work from gift shopping. Addison West aspires to be the area’s destination for gift finding, and it does not disappoint. Shoppers can swing by minutes before a dinner party for an artful bouquet and a bottle of bubbly from the well-stocked wine fridge. Or they can browse themed sections of the store that Bonner calls “vignettes”: areas focused on gardening, cooking, fishing, pickleball and more.
The tour began in “the pit,” a slightly sunken area to the right of the entrance where grain was dumped when the building served as a farm-supply store. The pit o ers gifts that men didn’t know they wanted: a leather punching bag hanging from a chain; Liberty puzzles, distinctive for their laser-cut wood
multitasks. De Souza packages up online orders, for instance, and Mays creates the bouquets and organizes events for customers.
De Souza is from Brazil. Bonner, whose mother is French, lived in Ireland for seven years and traveled around Europe for marketing jobs. The women’s tastes extend beyond standard Vermont: Plaids on upholstered furniture are muted, chic place mats are by New York City studio Chilewich, and a design for built-in kitchen cabinets — which De Souza generated with an artificial intelligence program — is sleek and contemporary.
Plenty of Vermont-made work is also on o er, including Elli Parr Jewelry by Sara Nelson of South Burlington, huge
Addison West in Waitsfield
heirloom baskets made by Kristine Myrick Andrews of Salisbury, pieces by Burlington’s AO Glass and white ceramics printed with anatomically detailed goat drawings by Laura Zindel of Brattleboro.
Bonner also collaborates with out-of-state artists to create items exclusive to Addison West, such as small white dishes featuring line drawings of covered bridges, ski-lift chairs and other Vermont-y designs by a Massachusetts artist. Bonner approached a California company that imprints canvas bags with “Ski” in giant letters to create a “Ski VT” bag in the store’s earthy green and tan colors. Similarly, an international hooked-wool pillow company produces the store’s “Ski VT” decorative pillows.
Each of these collaborations takes an average of six months to develop, Bonner said. That sounds daunting, but her enthusiasm for retail goes all the way back to her childhood in Andover, Mass. In sixth grade, Bonner said, she and her best friend founded Preppy Proprietor to sell handmade ribbon barrettes. Her second company, Mittens by Mo, taught Bonner a valuable economics lesson: Hand-knitting earned her an unsustainable 25 cents an hour.
Her first paid job, at age 12 — wrapping presents at a Pappagallo’s clothing store — clinched her interest in retail. “It was so joyful,” Bonner said. “It just stuck with me.”
That joy is evident everywhere in Addison West. A clothing rack holds men’s corduroy shirts and women’s loungewear alongside sequined party dresses. A kit for making smoked cocktails is next to the wine fridge.
Upstairs, among the building’s original wood ceiling beams, cozy furniture scenarios include a fully dressed bed with sheepskin throws. (Furniture has to be carried up the stairs; Bonner is contemplating where to install a freight elevator.)
Addison West collaborates with Edgewater Gallery in Middlebury to hold receptions and exhibit its artists at the Waitsfield store. Currently, Vermont photographer Jim Westphalen’s large-format landscapes are on view in the airy design room upstairs. There, customers can select sofa fabrics or plan their bathroom makeover.
Bonner, who worked in Colorado and Massachusetts as a young graduate, said she always wanted to return to Vermont to open a business. She moved back in 2011.
“I think Vermonters are very conscious consumers, and they care about supporting local businesses,” she said. “At the same time, it’s a small state, so we rely very much on the visitors and people who vacation here. Vermont is part of who we are, part of the design aesthetic that drives us.”
Among Bonner’s ambitions are growing national brand recognition and acquiring a separate warehouse space for expanding online sales. Meanwhile, however, she’s fully savoring her dream job.
“It’s the thing I’ve wanted to do my entire life,” she said. “I work harder than I have ever worked, and I cannot wait to get up in the morning and get started.” ➆
Interior designer Bibiana De Souza at Addison West in Waitsfield
West-ward Expansion « P.17
Heavy Metal
Learning the craft of blacksmithing at home
STORY & PHOTOS BY SUZANNE PODHAIZER
It was only 2 degrees outside, but as I gripped the tongs, trying to hammer the glowing piece of steel clamped in its jaws, my leather glove began to smoke. I dropped the tongs with a yelp, and the Viking-style belt buckle I was making fell into the snow. Steam rose as the metal hissed, sank and began to change color, from bright cherry to dull red to black. I would have to put it back in the forge to reheat it before trying again to shape the buckle’s serpentine curves.
For the previous Christmas, I’d gifted my partner, Jack, a class for the two of us at Blackthorne Forge in Marshfield. There, longtime smith Steve Bronstein shapes steel into serving spoons, cheese knives, animal sculptures, delicate vases and menorahs. When he’s not turning out custom work or preparing for craft shows, Bronstein teaches newbies how to safely hammer, bend and twist metal rods and bars into household items that are both functional and decorative. It was a year before we got around to taking the class. But in the car on our way home, it took us less than an hour to decide that we wanted our own forge. A few weeks later, Jack and I bundled in layers of cotton clothing to shield ourselves from potential burns and began heating and hammering our respective projects: a new pair of tongs for Jack and a set of basic hooks for me.
Our blacksmith gear’s first landing spot was outdoors, tucked away behind our tiny sugar shack. We figured that while we boiled sap, we could also be working metal. Jack built a rustic bench to hold the cobalt-blue anvil and a wooden platform topped with cinder blocks for the forge. More recently, we’ve moved these tools indoors, and the forge now sits on a metal cart, a safer, fireproof solution. For aspiring homesteaders like us, smithing in tandem may rank as one of the ultimate date activities — even in the winter with noses running and toes growing numb. There’s something romantic about taking turns at the anvil, moving around each other in a dance of hammers and sparks, and then triumphantly installing new handmade items around our home.
Steve Bronstein teaching at Blackthorne Forge
Forged items at Fort Chambly
National Historic Site in Québec
Twelve months after that class with Bronstein, our rustic cabin in St. Johnsbury offers ample evidence of our budding hobby: hooks hanging from a beam in the kitchen that hold our cast-iron pans, a trio of hand-hewn ash curtain rods with forged holders, twisty pegs on which we drape our winter clothes. My recent stab at a toilet-paper holder isn’t elegant, but it was my own design, and it’s prettier than the woodveneer-and-plastic version we had before.
That same DIY impetus spurred Bronstein to choose his career. After studying biology in college at State University of New York at New Paltz, intrigued by the prospect of making his
of metal all day and more teaching students. Bronstein’s shop has four fully functional workstations, and the student-teacher ratio allows for plenty of individualized attention.
“Most people who come in won’t keep doing it,” he surmised, “but [smithing] changes their perspectives on how everyday objects are made.” For smitten students like me and Jack, Bronstein said he strives to provide “enough information so you can go home and figure it out.”
And so we did. The small, twoburner Vevor forge we chose runs on propane and cost less than $200. We also purchased an anvil, a couple of hammers and two pairs of tongs to get
WORKING WITH FIRE AND METAL HAS
own tools and “being at the forge and moving metal,” he said, he took a couple of smithing classes and taught himself from there.
In 1989, Bronstein got his first smithing gig at Shelburne Museum. “My skill set was incredibly limited, but they just needed a warm body to run the forge,” he explained. Armed with his collection of blacksmithing books, he got paid to learn on the job. “I could make ugly things, and they didn’t care,” Bronstein recalled.
Now, 45 years later, he said he’s considering “transitioning to a different way of being in the shop.” That would likely mean less hammering hunks
us started. Acquiring everything new, as we did, beginners can set themselves up for less than $500.
Secondhand items, which sometimes turn up on Facebook Marketplace and elsewhere, can be acquired more cheaply if you have the patience to wait. You can even hack together your own propane or coal forge by following instructions in smithing books or myriad YouTube videos. (Those are also good sources for basic smithing tutorials, though I found it easier to learn on-site from a teacher who can correct techniques and provide pointers.)
Items Suzanne made during class at Blackthorne Forge
JNG CLEANERS
I asked Jack why the craft appeals to him. “Blacksmithing is a foundational part of industry,” he replied. “There’s a famous quote about how none of your other trades could function without it.”
He was referring to “The Blacksmiths’ Song,” composed by Englishman Moses Kipling in 1828. It notes that we’d all be lost without spades and sickles, knives and forks, axes and saws. The song also cheekily suggests that blacksmiths are a hit with the ladies. “By hammer and hand, all arts do stand,” it concludes.
In essence, blacksmiths have historically prided themselves on being able to create from scratch the tools that allow them to complete more complicated projects, and the ones that allow other tradesfolk to do their jobs. Jack has embraced that DIY ethos. So far, he’s made tongs, chisels, fire pokers and a pair of punches that allow him to pop neat holes into anything that requires a fastener (such as my toiletpaper holder or a shelf bracket that must be screwed to a wall). Currently, he’s working on his first cant hook, which he’ll use to roll and separate logs when he’s prepping firewood or sawing boards.
For me, the ultimate goal of smithing is melding the practical and decorative. I aim to make kitchenware, such as ladles, forks and knives that are both beautiful and sharp — although crafting blades requires a refined skill set that I have yet to learn. Along the way, I plan to churn out hooks that I’ll use to trellis the tomatoes in our greenhouse, replace a light fixture or two in the cabin, and perfect my Viking belt.
As Bronstein predicted, working with fire and metal has changed the way I see the world. These days, especially when I’m traveling, I notice things like hinges, pulls and thick metal fixtures sunk into ancient stone walls. At museums, I find myself gazing at paintings of blacksmiths at work, their muscles gleaming in the firelight, or pieces in which a smithy is visible in the background, a common part of the everyday experience.
At home, when I trudge through the snow to our new workshop to see what Jack is up to, I can often match my steps to the sound of a hammer pinging on metal. I wonder what household problem he’s solving with a piece of 2,000-degree steel and a few hundred swings of his arm. ➆
